The present disclosure is directed to low dielectric constant materials, which may be used as insulating layers in semiconductor or other electronic devices.
Semiconductor fabrication technologies typically use dielectric materials as insulating layers between circuits and components of circuits (e.g., integrated circuits). As but one example, dielectric materials are typically used between interconnection layers of a multilayer interconnect structure of a semiconductor device. Dielectric materials in this application are commonly referred to as interlayer dielectric (ILD). As dimensions decrease in semiconductor device components, the requirements to isolate adjacent features from one another becomes more critical, and more difficult. To meet these challenges, the industry has turned to low dielectric constant materials as opposed to the traditional use of silicon dioxide as ILD layers. However, formulations of low dielectric constant (low-k) materials often have other disadvantages such as poor mechanical strength, de-lamination, damage induced by etching (e.g., plasma) processes, and the like.